The invention relates to a method and a system for the automated planning of ameeting between at least two participants taking into account electronically stored calendar data relating to the participants.
In order to organize a meeting between private individuals or business people nowadays, a large amount of effort is usually required and optimum success remains uncertain. If a person wishes to invite other people to a meeting, for example, the person scheduling the meeting must initially reach the other participants via a communication medium and must arrange a common appointment with said participants. Optimum appointments in terms of time and location are not always made in this case; the participants then often discover that, on account of the outward journey arrangements, an appointment one hour later or earlier would have been more favorable, for example, since a considerable amount of outward journey time and/or return journey time would then have been saved, for example.
The method of transport (perhaps public transport) for the outward journey are then usually also laboriously reserved by the participants themselves. Nearby further appointments of the participants themselves or the like, are often not taken into account either.
The known manual procedure when agreeing on appointments, comprising the time and location of a meeting, therefore has a multiplicity of disadvantages. The appointment calendars of the participants and the reservation are not synchronized since the person scheduling the meeting does not have an overview of the calendar data relating to the other participants. Travel times as well as preparation and follow-up times (registration, presentation preparation, search for a parking space, etc.) for a conference are not taken into account. Agreement in the event of a change to the proposed appointment is associated with a large amount of effort and there is no systematic assistance when dealing with the approach route or determining the costs of the approach route and there is no easy possible way of determining when participants are delayed.
US 2009/0210262 A1 proposes an automatic travel system which can cooperate with an appointment application in order to synchronize the appointment calendars of the participants with one another and to automatically reserve the corresponding method of transport after an appointment has been determined. However, this does not take overall account of the abovementioned problems, in particular since the actual appointment agreement process is not adequately supported.